Pakistan equity ends in red amid foreign selling

KARACHI: The KSE-100 Index remained in the negative on Wednesday’s session, closing at 43,353.04 after shedding 337.32 points, owing to different factors including persistent foreign selling and threats by the US to move a motion to place Pakistan on a global terror-financing watch list.

The benchmark KSE-100 index witnessed a choppy session with the Index scaling to a high of 91.52 points during the first 2 hours of market open; however bears established made a comeback.

Bearish sentiment at the bourse was triggered by news that USA & its allies have tabled a motion with the FATF to place Pakistan on a watch list of countries considered non-compliant with global anti-terror financing coupled with surging oil production in the United States that is “putting brakes on crude oil prices”.

The bourse remained negative during most part of the day, as it entered the positive range for a short period only, and closed 337 points below. Traded volumes for the day were 207 million shares while value traded totaled to $ 70 million.

Top volume stocks were UNITY (-4.84%), FFL (-5%), KEL (-2.74%), WTL (-4.25%), ANL (-1.38%) and TRG (-3.43%). Spur in heavyweight banks was witnessed where HBL (+3.31%), UBL (+1.82%), ABL (+0.86%) and MCB (+0.20%) closed in the green on the back of Tuesday’s news that the Supreme Court observed fixing minimum rate of banks’ pension as Rs8,000 and annually increasing at a rate of five percent with prospective effect.

Pharma Stocks SEARL (-3.87%), GLAXO (-3.32%), and ABOT (-1.81%) dipped after the news that Government has issued a notice for the extension in the exemption of imports of lifesaving drugs for two years.

Moreover, BAHL (-1.25%) announced its result for the year end 2017 where the company posted an EPS of Rs7.78, with cash payout of Rs3/share. MEBL (-3.39%) also announced its result for the year end 2017 where the company reported consolidated EPS at Rs5.46 and announced final cash payout of Rs1.25/share. PTC (-5.12%) announced its result for the year end 2017 where the company posted consolidated EPS of Rs0.85 with no cash payout. In the E&P sector, PPL (-0.08%) and OGDC (-0.48%) closed in the red.

Danish Ladhani of JS Research expects market to remain volatile with flows from local institutions and foreigners directing the market.